I'm not arguing all doctors and lawyers are in the top 1%, just a significant percentage of them. Your average specialist salary will get you very close to that threshold and being a specialist is not exactly a "capital owner who doesn't have to work".
To say that all top 1% are "capital owners who don't need to work" isn't accurate. There are plenty of wage earners in the top 1%.
The whole point of medians is that half of them are below that. So half of physicians don’t get there even if they double up (2 physician incomes per family)
I’m certainly not arguing that all of the 1% are living off capital only, but it’s worth noting that the people in there that primarily do it off a wage are unusual even amongst high wage earners.
Absolutely the top 0.01% is different than the top 1%. But that doesn’t make the top 1% just folks.
There you go, someone did the analysis. For top 1%, salary makes up the same fraction of income as capital gains.
” This fraction declines and for the top 1 percent (those making $783,000 or more), their income is about equally split between capital and labor income.”
I’d bet if you looked at those in the top 1% but under $1M range the vast majority of income is salary.
To say that all top 1% are "capital owners who don't need to work" isn't accurate. There are plenty of wage earners in the top 1%.